Co-existing

I grew up in a central suburb of Mumbai, called Dombivli and spent 23 years there. I went to school in Dombivli and later to college in Mulund, and for post-graduation, I went to Mumbai University at Kalina, which was manageable by train. The formidable years of schooling and college were spent studying in one of the two bedrooms in the house. We stayed on the first floor. The society, next to ours was very close and we could almost hear the arguments, discussions, television noise or arrival of guests in the houses on the first floor and they could hear everything that happened on our first floor. During the Ganpati festival, there were always elaborate rituals and aarti sessions that even we enjoyed listening to from their end. Still, there were also bitter arguments between family members that left us sad and fearful.

Very close to the balcony of one of my bedrooms, there stayed one family of three. There was an aged father, a mother and an unmarried son who was unemployed and unmarried. Soon after, the old lady died and there were just two of them remaining under one roof. The aged father was probably short of hearing, and he used to watch television in the afternoon and evenings in full volume. That disturbed me a lot when I sat to study or wanted to sleep after 9 pm. My dad knew that family as we had a medical shop and people came in to buy medicines. But it never occurred to me to go to them and inform them to reduce the volume. I could have easily done that, but I wonder what kept me from doing that. I could have told my dad about it, and he would have taken care of it, but I never did that. On the contrary, I shouted back loudly and asked him to lower the volume, but he never heard my voice and never turned down the volume. This went on for many years and then I moved out of Dombivli and shifted to Bangalore for the job.

This year, when I went back to where I used to stay, the society was all empty as it will soon go for redevelopment. My mom wanted me to go upstairs and have a look at it. But I didn’t have the nerve to do it. The society looked eerie and barren. There was once life in it and now with no inhabitants around, it suddenly looked like a ruin. I had the best memories of my childhood there and it is never going to be the same after a new and posh building comes up in its place. Change is permanent, one must accept and move on. 

Cut to Germany. 

We came back from India in the last week of August so that we have sufficient time till the schools start from 9th September. As it was a warm month of August, we had kept the windows and balcony door partially open. But to our dismay, there was a constant sound of television coming from some flat beginning right at 10 am and continuing even after 11 pm, non-stop. We tried to find out, where could the noise be coming from. Is it from above or from below the flat was a little difficult to ascertain. This has been happening for a long time now, but because we kept windows closed during winters, it wasn’t troublesome. But it became a nuisance when we could hear only the television sound in our living room and bedrooms. Even after putting the earplugs at night, the sound was still audible. I could not take it anymore and decided to write a notice about it. I drafted the notice in German and showed it to my 81-year-old, very friendly neighbor and she approved the language and the content. I went with two copies to the Hausmeister (the person who manages the society) and told him about my problem. He was ready to help me, and he put the notice right at the entrance where people could see it while going out or coming into the society.

I had sympathy for that person who was at home all the time perhaps, unable to move much perhaps, was alone all the time (which is the case of most old people in Germany) and he/she must be just switching on the television so that some voice could be heard in the background and the loneliness would be little lesser felt. Or maybe the person is hard of hearing too, who knows? I understood this, but I was not ready to be a part of this every single day from 10 am to 11 pm. I didn’t know what the reaction to the notice would be, but to my pleasant surprise, the television sound stopped reaching us from that day. The person must have read the notice and realized that it is disturbing others and from that day (it’s been four days), there is no disturbance for us at least.

This was a lesson for me that talking, expressing what you feel, and explaining things in a decent language and tone solves many problems and helps us to co-exist. I wish I had done the same in Dombivli and had talked to that person about lowering the volume of the television, but then it is not possible to go back in time and do that. I can only compare those two situations and be happy with the fact that the other person here in Germany understood the inconvenience that he/she had inadvertently caused and corrected his/her behaviour.

I am thinking of putting up another notice thanking that person and being considerate.